One year ago today, on October 27, 2016, hundreds of law enforcement officers descended on a small resistance camp that stood directly in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline, forcibly evicting residents and arresting 142 people — more than on any other day in the 11-month-long Standing Rock struggle. Seven people, all Native American, were slapped with rare federal charges, and additional cases stemming from the raid continue to move through the North Dakota legal system.

Although it was not the most violent confrontation between the pipeline resistance and law enforcement, no other incident better illustrates the collaboration between federal, local, and state police and private security in suppressing the NoDAPL movement, nor would any be as symbolic of the historic proportions of the native-led fight. A year later, two other pipeline fights — against Enbridge Line 3 and Keystone XL — are brewing nearby in South Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. As indigenous leaders in those fights stand again on treaty rights against the pipelines, the October 27 standoff and the eviction of Treaty Camp have become a roadmap for both water protectors and law enforcement as they prepare for battles to come.

The Intercept has obtained hours of police bodycam and aerial footage, as well as photographs, audio recordings, and a large set of incident reports describing police activities during the October 27 raid. That material, selections of which appear below, along with interviews with more than a dozen water protectors who were present that day, paints the most detailed picture yet of the most dramatic standoff between indigenous people and U.S. police forces in over four decades.

A view of the 1851 Treaty Camp ahead of the October 27, 2016 police raid that put an end to it.

Photo: Law enforcement photo

Drive north on Highway 1806 through the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, cross the Cannonball River, and you enter unceded treaty territory — land indigenous people never agreed to relinquish.

Immediately north of the river begins federal land controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where the largest Dakota Access Pipeline resistance camp, known as Oceti Sakowin, was located for seven months beginning in August 2016. Just north of there, the Dakota Access Pipeline now crosses the highway. Energy Transfer Partners bought the property on either side of the road, known as Cannonball Ranch. The legality of its sale to ETP is questionable under a North Dakota law that blocks corporations from buying agricultural land. But North Dakota law aside, native historians say, that land should never have been for sale: It belongs to the Sioux. If the Fort Laramie treaties in 1851 and 1868 had been honored, the site would still be controlled by the Great Sioux Nation.

For water protectors, the fight against the pipeline was only the latest episode in two centuries of native resistance to U.S. government incursion into the northern Great Plains, part of a lineage that includes the 1876 Battle of Greasy Grass, where indigenous people defeated the U.S. 7th Cavalry in defense of their treaty rights to South Dakota’s Black Hills; the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, where as many as 300 Lakota people were killed by U.S. soldiers; and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, where armed members of the American Indian Movement faced off with federal agents in protest of a corrupt local government and the U.S. government’s legacy of broken treaties.

This latest confrontation was not supposed to involve guns — the water protectors were mostly committed to unarmed opposition — but it did invoke that bloody history.

Law enforcement planned to evict the Treaty Camp on October 26, but a soupy fog descended on the hills. A small envoy of local, state, and federal officers drove toward the blockade that water protectors had erected on the highway to keep police out.

They were greeted by Mekasi Camp Horinek, a member of the Ponca tribe from Oklahoma, whose uncle Carter Camp helped organize the Wounded Knee occupation in 1973. He was joined by several other pipeline opponents.

The negotiators talked in circles, with Horinek and his companions returning repeatedly to the issue of the Fort Laramie treaties, which law enforcement repeatedly argued was not their jurisdiction.

“So is this about water and oil, or is this about 140 years?” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney replied, referring to the Great Sioux War, which ended with the U.S. government’s annexation of the sacred Black Hills.

“Everything. All of that. We’ve had enough. We’ve had enough,” one of the water protectors said.

As the conversation broke down, Horinek declared, “Highway 1806 is now a no-surrender line, and that camp is no retreat.”

“That’s your final word?” Laney asked.

“That’s the final word,” Horinek replied.

Police recording of negotiations between pipeline opponents and law enforcement officials on Oct. 26, 2016.

Reflecting on that day nearly a year later, Horinek explained that the experiences of native people 140 years ago are impossible to disentangle from the poverty and environmental contamination seen across Indian Country today.

To him, the October 27 raid was a visible reminder that the past is present. “I wanted the world to see this militarized force coming in like it’s the 1800s with their gatling guns and their advanced weaponry,” he told The Intercept. “I wanted pictures of them slashing those teepees; I wanted pictures of them pulling open those teepees and arresting families.”

Law enforcement officials tear down a tent at Treaty Camp on Oct. 27 2016.

In the weeks preceding the founding of the Treaty Camp, direct action had become a daily ritual for residents of the resistance camps nearby. On some mornings, convoys of cars carrying water protectors would weave through the hills toward construction sites or government buildings identified as protest targets. A team of lawyers stood at the ready to assist those who were arrested and detained. But the temperature was dropping below freezing at night. Winter would doubtlessly sap energy from the movement.

Meanwhile, scouts and drones sent out into the hills were returning with reports that the construction was getting closer to the highway crossing and to the river.

Water protectors felt a growing sense of urgency.

Joye Braun came to the NoDAPL movement already a veteran pipeline fighter. She was involved with a Keystone XL opposition camp on South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Sioux reservation. After Obama’s State Department denied Keystone XL a key permit, putting it to a halt, Braun became the first person to pitch a teepee at the first DAPL resistance camp, called Sacred Stone.

“The only way you can stop a pipeline when it gets that drastic is to go in front of it,” Braun said. “This was our land. This is our land.”

The Dakota Access Pipeline cuts through land that by treaty belonged to the Great Sioux Nation, which was later confined to reservations like Standing Rock. The clashes on October 27, 2016, took place in the area indicated in red above. Source: Forensic Architecture, 2017

According to treaties signed between the U.S. government and indigenous nations in the 19th century, Cannonball Ranch — the land DAPL eventually purchased — should have never been for sale.

That’s because the pipeline route cuts through land that the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, intended to buy peace and safe passage for settlers moving through the area, established as belonging to the Sioux. In 1868, the treaty was superseded by a second treaty that established the Great Sioux reservation. But while that treaty created a reservation whose borders were further south, it also determined that the land DAPL bought was “unceded Indian territory” — a designation that holds to this day, despite the beliefs of some U.S. elected officials.

“Unceded land is land that was never given over or conceded; it’s essentially stolen land,” Nick Estes, a Lakota historian, told The Intercept. Cannonball Ranch, specifically, was “illegally settled,” Estes said, and acquired as private property through squatters’ rights.

Only an act of Congress can abridge a treaty, opening unceded territory for non-native settlement, Estes said — but that never happened with this particular land, the status of which remains disputed. Disputes over unceded land have arisen before — most notably over the Black Hills, which resulted in a 1980 Supreme Court decision that offered a monetary settlement as reparation for the settled land — but no actual land restitution. Indigenous people have refused to take that money.

“Turning private land back into indigenous land … is near impossible,” said Estes. “Private property always trumps indigenous land rights, and that’s just how the federal system works.”

“People think … oh, that was back in the 1800s, and that was a long time ago, and those don’t have any merit today,” said Braun. “That’s my land, that’s the Lakota and Dakota people of this territory.”

Native American activist Joye Braun — the first person to pitch a teepee at the first DAPL resistance camp — talks to The Intercept about the fight for her native land.

On October 23, Braun moved her teepee to what would become the Treaty Camp. But she never doubted that a police confrontation was imminent. Two days earlier, police had moved their staging area from the Mandan airport, a 40-minute drive from the heart of the protests, to Fort Rice, 10 minutes away.

“I think every night I only got about an hour of sleep because we were constantly under threat of them moving in,” Braun said. “There were constant rumors — they’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming.”

Then, on the morning of October 27, “They came marching in.”

Law enforcement officials training in darkness.

To Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, whose department led the law enforcement response to the pipeline protests, treaty enforcement is the federal government’s job. “I understand the treaties and what that’s about,” he told The Intercept.

“This was a federal problem from the beginning of it,” he said, adding, “We as the county officials can’t do anything about it.”

“That’s the irony of it,” Estes said. “County sheriffs and any law enforcement officials are supposed to uphold federal law and the Constitution, and in the Constitution, it says that the treaties are the supreme law of the land.”

Nonetheless, Kirchmeier would lead some 300 officers to clear the Treaty Camp on October 27.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier tells The Intercept about the various law enforcement agencies that came together on Oct. 27 and the tools they used, including LRADs, Tasers and OC spray.

It wasn’t just local police that would join the operation. In August, North Dakota’s Department of Emergency Services activated the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which allows states to import police from other states. On October 27, 97 out-of-state officers participated in the raid – approximately a third of the force.

An array of federal agencies was involved, too. Ninety federal law enforcement officials from various agencies had taken part in monitoring the DAPL resistance by October 23, police records show — and 14 of them took part in the October 27 operations, according to police. Meanwhile, the law enforcement Emergency Operations Center in Bismarck, established to respond to the DAPL protests, hosted daily meetings that included intelligence officers from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and other agencies.

Still, after more than two months of DAPL demonstrations, police felt under-resourced, frustrated that the federal government refused to take control of the situation by making a final decision on the pipeline or sending more support.

This would be one of the largest operations the multi-agency force had carried out. “The biggest concern is that there were several hundred individuals that were camped out on private property, and that could not continue,” Sheriff Kirchmeier said.

1. On the morning of October 27, 2016, as law enforcement officers moved to clear the 1851 Treaty Camp, water protectors set up barricades on Highway 1806 and County Road 134, in an effort to halt their advance. 2. Police slowly moved down Highway 1806, arresting dozens of water protectors and forcing them to retreat. 3. At County Road 134, a group of water protectors set a barricade on fire before retreating. 4. Kyle Thompson, a DAPL security guard armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, drove his track at high speed towards one of the camps, before being pushed off the road and chased into the water by a group of water protectors. Source: Forensic Architecture, 2017

Treaty Camp would be defended at two front lines: on Highway 1806, where water protectors set up a barricade directly north of the camp, and on County Road 134, a dirt road that bisects the highway south of Treaty Camp and north of Oceti Sakowin Camp. Water protectors suspected police would use the dirt road to cut off access to the larger camp, where thousands of water protectors had stayed behind.

Desiree Kane, a Miwok freelance reporter who stayed at the resistance camps from May to December 2016, approached County Road 134 as the standoff with police began. Within hours, barricades were set ablaze in between the water protectors and the police.

Despite the flames, Kane said, “There was an overwhelming sense of calm.” Singers sang prayer songs to the beat of a hand drum. On the hills, horse riders looked down on the gathering. “I think it’s portrayed as mayhem, but that’s not what I witnessed.”

In an attempt to halt advancing police, water protectors blocked County Road 134 by setting a makeshift barricade on fire.

Photo:Law enforcement photo

At Highway 1806, however, arguments had broken out about whether to allow police to extinguish a barricade fire that was sending smoke billowing into the hills. Horinek backed away from his cry of “No surrender; no retreat.” Despite objections, he pushed people back, allowing police to inch forward. “I think had we not slowly pulled back that there would have been loss of life on October 27, 2016,” he said.

Frank Archambault, a Standing Rock tribal member and member of a camp security group, found himself pleading with water protectors to avoid provoking police. “We’re all the time trying to stop them from throwing stuff, so they don’t have an excuse to shoot those people,” he said.

Pipeline protesters throw objects at law enforcement agents, who respond with pepper spray.

Allison Renville, a member of the Great Sioux Nation from South Dakota, saw historical trauma playing out in the mixed reactions of her fellow water protectors. “A lot of it had to do with fight or flight, a natural response when you’re threatened that bad that you’re waiting to die,” she said.

“When I went out there, I went out with the mindset of, I’m going out there to protect and stand for what is right, and if that costs me my life, then so be it,” said Elih Lizama, an Apache and Mayan pipeline opponent from California, who joined a group of horse riders assigned to patrol the hills that made up the DAPL property. But he didn’t equate readiness for death with violence.

“They brought guns to this fight,” Lizama said. “All we have is our prayer.”

At a meeting of DAPL security personnel held the day before the Treaty Camp was raided, a PowerPoint was presented describing a volatile situation. “There are outsiders deliberately moving the rioters toward violent action,” the PowerPoint said. Under a category labeled “What we know,” it noted, “Rioters do possess weapons.” Under “What we do not know”: “Number and type of weapons in the camp.”

Private security firm TigerSwan shared this intelligence update with law enforcement a day before the raid of Treaty Camp.

TigerSwan, a firm made up of former military personnel hired by Energy Transfer Partners to manage its sprawling security operation, organized the daily briefings and made sure police knew what was being discussed. Public records show that Mercer County Sheriff Dean Danzeisen and Morton County Sheriff’s Deputy Lynn Wanner received the presentations.

A spokesperson for Morton County said that they only used the information from briefings for “situational awareness.” Mercer County did not respond to requests for comment. TigerSwan and Energy Transfer Partners did not respond either.

In an interview with The Intercept, Kirchmeier insisted that law enforcement kept private security at a distance. “When we did a law enforcement function or we had a law enforcement incident, I did not want the private security anywhere near where the law enforcement was,” he said. “Could they stay up on the hilltops and that type of thing? Yes, because it was on Dakota Access property.”

But he admitted that law enforcement and DAPL security did sometimes work together, “depending on the circumstance.”

“Did we talk to private security? Absolutely. We used them as a resource just like many other resources that are out there,” he said, listing asset sharing that included police using private security’s snow mobiles and ATVs for their operations.

Police used DAPL security’s ATVs to drop off a sniper near the County Road 134 barricade.

Photo:Law enforcement photo

For example, police were using ATVs owned by DAPL to distribute their own personnel throughout the sweeping plains, including at least one sniper, who crouched in the weeds aiming at Highway 134. A Morton County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson told The Intercept, “Because [law enforcement] received numerous threats that protesters had snipers in the hills and people hiding with weapons in the trees, we had to take precautions. Our [law enforcement] was not there to shoot at targets, but rather to observe and protect our officers in the area.”

On the day of the Treaty Camp raid, private security personnel also provided police with extra hands.

As the line of police moved down Highway 1806, Alyssa Beaulieu, of the Red Lake band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, and a handful of others jumped a fence and started running though the field where pipeline construction was underway. She was quickly surrounded by men in plainclothes.

“They were trying to herd us,” she added, describing how police and security were able to control people’s movement, “so I just stood there.”

“It was just a prideful thing. I could have run, I could have gone back to camp,” she added. “But I had a moment.” She and another protester were tackled to the ground by four men, including two DAPL security guards. Private security assisted police in attaching zip ties around her wrists.

A spokesperson for the Morton County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that the two men (shown in law enforcement video footage in the brown coat and the camouflage bandana) helping handcuff Beaulieu and her companion were DAPL security officers.

“Security was not arresting – they do not have the authority to do so – they are only helping with detaining the unlawful protesters,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to The Intercept. The spokesperson added that it was “not any different than if an intruder was on your private property – you have every right to try to hold them, detain them, as the police arrive to arrest them.”

A selection of law enforcement reports concerning the events of October 27, 2016.

Deeper in the hills, horse riders were facing off with police and private security in ATVs, in trucks, and even in the air. Lizama had been scouting on horseback in the plains for days, watching the activities of police and private security, “We knew they were dropping people off to spy on people from the hills,” he said.

Where horses couldn’t go, water protectors sent drones to conduct reconnaissance. But by the day of the raid, the aircraft had been officially banned. On October 23, the day the first tents went up at Treaty Camp, North Dakota officials submitted a request to the Federal Aviation Administration for a rare “temporary flight restriction” covering the airspace above the pipeline resistance.

The no-fly zone was in place between October 25 and December 13 — allowing “only relief aircraft ops under direction of North Dakota Tactical Operations Center,” according to the FAA. But on the day of the raid, DAPL’s helicopter continued to fly above, alongside North Dakota Highway Patrol aircraft, officially becoming part of the law enforcement’s eviction effort. According to Kirchmeier, a law enforcement officer always accompanied DAPL personnel in the private aircraft.

From above, police and private security captured footage of the raid and the action in the countryside, some of which would be used later in the prosecution of water protectors.

Meanwhile, on Highway 1806, police were breaking up various ceremonies in the midst of the standoff. They separated and arrested a huddle of elders immersed in prayer. Joseph Hock, of the Mackinac tribe from Michigan, was pulled out of a sweat lodge. “I was sort of a little fuzzy-headed by then,” he said. “It was like jumping in ice-cold water in the middle of winter, that’s what it felt like.”

Screenshot of police report

In the distance, smoke billowed, as a bulldozer was set on fire in an area off 1806 where DAPL stored its equipment. The group blocking County Road 134 had retreated.

Still, there was defiance in the faces of many, even as it became clear the camp had fallen. “Regardless if we come out of this whole thing heroes or not, we were fighting for our people that day; we were fighting for our land,” Renville said. “We felt like we were winning.”

In the hills, three water protectors on horseback put into action a plan formulated by Lizama and his crew in the first days of Treaty Camp: They drove a herd of buffalo from an area ranch toward the frontline. As police moved farther and farther south, the buffalo stampeded in the background. “This is the epitome of Indian Country — what it’s like to be here. We’re in a modern-day Indian war,” Renville said. “When it comes to these attacks on the environment, these treaty laws are the only thing that can save us because they’re the supreme law of the land.”

A herd of stampeding buffalo is seen from a security helicopter.

As water protectors retreated, a call came over the radio, “Gunman, gunman, gunman.”

A white truck careened down Highway 1806 toward the big Oceti Sakowin camp, where thousands of DAPL opponents had stayed as the smaller front-line camp was evicted.

“All of a sudden a guy with a gun comes toward us,” said Mike Fasig, a member of the camp security group. Fasig thought of the camp full of women, elders, and children, imagining the melee that would follow if the gunman opened fire near the police line.

Fasig and another security group member, Israel Hernandez, jumped into their respective vehicles and sped toward the gunman’s vehicle.

Mike Fasig tells the story of a white truck driven by an armed man that came careening towards Oceti Sakowin camp in this interview with Intercept staff.

The man at the wheel of the white truck was Kyle Thompson, a guard for Leighton security, one of about half a dozen private security companies working to guard the pipeline. Although Thompson was ex-military, Leighton mostly hired off-duty cops, including, said company president Kevin Mayberry, officers from the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and other local agencies. Morton County told The Intercept that Leighton had requested personnel to watch an equipment yard. “The sheriff made the deputies aware of the job opportunity to serve as private security in their off hours (essentially, a second job – they were paid by Leighton). It was only for 12 days from Aug. 5-17 because once the protest began, the deputies were needed to respond to that activity and worked plenty of overtime with that,” said a spokesperson.

For the water protectors, private security had been a constant presence since August. Scouts like Lizama encountered them dressed in ghillie suits, which are used by the military to disguise soldiers as piles of grass, hiding in the countryside at night. They followed drivers around. Rumors of security infiltrating the camps — later proven to be founded — had circulated for weeks.

The sudden appearance on October 27 of an armed private security officer was the manifestation of a threat they had always felt was lurking.

In an interview with The Intercept, Thompson said he drove toward the camp responding to a message that equipment was on fire near Highway 1806.

He said that as he approached the side road where the burning construction equipment was located, wearing a red bandana to disguise himself as a water protector, he saw a crowd of people. “I got super paranoid and nervous. I was security, and in a sense behind the lines,” Thompson said. Sitting next to him was his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

Mayberry said that his company largely stayed away from protesters and did not deploy disguised guards. “We had no guards doing that, so if he was doing that, or if somebody was doing that, that’s on him; that has nothing to do with our company,” he said, adding that non-law enforcement were not supposed to be armed. “We didn’t even know he had a gun with him,” he said.

Kyle Thompson’s AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

Photo: Law enforcement photo

Water protectors noticed the unfamiliar truck and asked Thompson who he was. “Brian,” he lied.

But the water protectors didn’t miss his rifle.

“They were like, stop that truck. If they stopped me and got into it, I realize they would have known who I was. I don’t know what they would have done,” Thompson recalled. So he sped down the road, steering into the ditch to avoid pedestrians. As he drove, people attempted to block his path.

“The suicide by law enforcement thing popped back into my head,” Thompson said later, recalling a warning he said he’d heard in one of the daily security briefings. “These people are almost willing to get run over.”

“If he would have shot those rounds off, the police would have killed us,” said Horinek. As was the case with many other water protectors, his thoughts immediately went to Wounded Knee, when a single shot fired as the U.S. 7th Cavalry descended on an encampment of Lakota people sparked a massacre.

As Thompson’s white truck neared the Oceti Sakowin camp, Fasig veered left, ramming Thompson to a halt. Thompson emerged from the vehicle holding his AR-15, finger on the trigger. The crowd screamed at him to put down the gun. He backed into the pond on the side of the road as water protectors, one armed with a knife, surrounded him and attempted to disarm him. Pipeline opponents set his truck on fire.

While Thompson was eventually disarmed and arrested by officers with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he was never charged. Instead, it would be Fasig and two others who tried to disarm Thompson who would face felony charges.

To Fasig, the outcome seemed twisted. “If you have an unknown person wearing a mask with an AR-15 that took the license plates off his truck, and he’s going through a ditch and driving around people in an aggressive manner, trying to get close to your schools and your churches — if the citizens in that city take and do everything they can to stop that man, that city would have a parade,” he said. “But when it comes to employees of Dakota Access doing anything like that toward Native Americans, we all of a sudden become criminals.”

Many of the 142 people arrested at Treaty Camp that day told The Intercept that they were held on the highway in handcuffs for hours, stripped of their clothes, and had identification numbers written on their arms.

Eventually, they were loaded onto school buses, some barefoot and in their underwear, and taken to Morton County, where they were packed into dog kennels before being shipped to jails across the state, including some several hours away, without being told where they were going. Upon release, many returned to find that their cars had been impounded and their tents and property dumped on a pile on the ground.

Hock, who was pulled out of the sweat lodge, said he returned to find his belongings, including a sacred pipe, had been urinated on.

“They wanted to degrade and humiliate us so that we would turn back and go home,” he told The Intercept. “But what they actually did added to the resolve to go ahead and stand up and fight even more.”

The spokesperson for the Morton County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that “fenced cubicles” were used on that day but stressed that “all essential services” were provided to those temporarily held in them. She added that “the inmates had the number written on their arms so it couldn’t be easily removed,” as had happened on previous occasions, and noted that those arrested were only allowed to keep one layer of clothes for safety reasons. “If they didn’t want that layer to be their long underwear, they had the option of going to the restroom to remove the underwear and change into their pants,” the spokesperson wrote.

She also confirmed that those arrested were not told where they were being taken to in order to avoid “the potential for the bus being stopped and surrounded on the highway by a mass of people, or a mass of people gathering at the destination attempting to disrupt the process and creating a dangerous situation.”

“The private security company working for the landowner likely knows what was done with property left behind,” the spokesperson added, noting that as those arrested were trespassing, the property owners had no obligation to return their belongings. “If there was property urinated upon, it was not done by law enforcement.”

In all, over the course of seven months, 838 people faced charges in at least 427 separate DAPL-related criminal cases in North Dakota, according to the Water Protector Legal Collective, a group of lawyers representing many of those defendants. As of late September, 427 people’s cases remained open, 289 were dismissed, 105 resolved through plea deals or other pretrial diversions, and 10 resulted in convictions. Two more people were convicted and imprisoned last week — the first to receive a jail sentence in connection to last year’s protests.

Timothy Cominghay, a member of Freshet, a native collective that’s been providing support to activists returning to North Dakota for court dates, talks to The Intercept about the Oct. 27 arrests.

The most serious charges involve incidents that took place on October 27.

Five people accused of helping set the County Road 134 bridge on fire — as well as one person accused of setting a Highway 1806 barricade ablaze — were charged with “commission of a civil disorder” and “using fire to commit a civil disorder,” federal charges that carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. And a woman named Red Fawn Fallis faces three federal felony charges — after a gun went off when officers tackled her to the ground on the day of the Treaty Camp raid. She faces the possibility of life in prison.

“A lot of people thought that it was over after Standing Rock, and they didn’t think how this is years long. We have cases scheduled out through July,” said Timothy Cominghay, a member of Freshet — a native collective that’s been providing support to those returning to North Dakota for their court dates. “This is just a different type of resistance.”

Water protectors chased DAPL security guard Kyle Thompson into the water and surrounded him, in an effort to disarm him.

Photo:Law enforcement photo

Months after he drove his truck toward the Oceti Sakowin Camp, Thompson, the private security guard, emerged as an unlikely ally to those facing charges for attempting to disarm him.

“The water protectors that day, they had a mission to protect their own people,” Thompson told Myron Dewey, a water protector and journalist with Digital Smoke Signals, in a Facebook Live interview on July 12. “It was just a miscommunication on both sides, I believe, that made us do what we did.”

Following that interview, a state prosecutor dropped charges against Brennon Nastacio, one of the water protectors that had attempted to disarm Thompson in the water, saying that Thompson’s statements had raised “significant doubt as to whether the state could meet its burden of proof with regard to the charge of terrorizing.” According to an agreement with the court, Fasig and Hernandez will see their charges dismissed in a year if they pay fines and commit no crimes.

“I’m ready for this all to be over with. But I also want to help and get the truth out there. The charges people are facing are a little bit extreme for what they did,” Thompson told The Intercept. “I feel like I have people who don’t like me on both sides now. I feel like a lot of protectors that don’t like me. A lot of law enforcement that don’t like me.”

Most water protectors and police have doubled down on their resolve — and new pipeline fights have picked up across the country.

“There is a lot of interest throughout the country on what happened and how we handled it, what we learned, and those type of issues,” Sheriff Kirchmeier told The Intercept. “I have been around, went to several other states and talking to emergency managers, to other sheriffs, to those individuals who are interested in it. The main interest is trying to find out a little bit about the background, the history of it, and what we could do, and what we did do for the safety of everybody involved.”

Joye Braun is preparing for the next treaty stand. The newly revived Keystone XL Pipeline would swing just outside the boundary of her Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation and awaits a major decision from Nebraska.

“There won’t be another Standing Rock, just like there won’t be a Wounded Knee ’73,” she said. “But we learned a lot of lessons.”

If the Keystone XL Pipeline begins construction, Braun will pitch a teepee at another frontline camp.

Top photos: Some 142 people were arrested on October 27, 2016, as law enforcement raided the 1851 Treaty Camp. Police photographed them ons site with their arrest information. [Source: law enforcement photo]

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I HAVE MANY OF YOU AS FRIENDS THERE! OR IN SOME OF THE OTHER NATIONS AROUND THE USA,
CLOUD SPENCER EAGLEBEAR IF MY FRIEND

AND I LOVE AND RESPECT HIM EMENCLY, A VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE AND DEDICATED LOVING SOLE IS HE .!A WONDERFUL ELDER, THAT DESERVES RESPECT, HONER, AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS PART IN THE LIFE! MAY HE REMAIN BLESSED BY THE GREAT SPIRIT .IN MY WORLD IN JESUS NAME AMEN. WHEN I SEE THESE HORRIBLE THINGS STILL INFLICTED ON THE NATIONAL TRIBES HERE IN AMERICA!
IT SADNESS MY HEART BEYOND MEASURE! AND MAKES ME SO ANGRY FOR THE LIVES THAT HAVE GONE THROUGH SO MUCH OVER THE CENTRIES! BY THE PEOPLE THAT CAME AND TOOK FROM YOU ALL YOU HAD! AND STILL ARE NEVER SATISFIED WITH WHAT THEY HAVE, AND NEVER WILL BE IM AFRAID! THEY WILL NOT, INTILL ALL LIFE IS DESTROYED AND ALL LOVE GONE AND ONLY DARKNESS COVERS THE EARTH IN ITS LAST DEATH SONG, OF SORROWS, THAN SILENCE.!

NOW THIS MESSAGE IS FROM THE HEART OF ME NOT TO START ANOTHER WAR
THAT ONLY THE MEN YOU NEVER SEE BENEFIT,… WHILE WE DIE OVER THERE OBSESSION TO RULE OVER ALL LIFE ON EARTH! THEREVNAME IS DARKNESS! THERE PLAN DESTRUCTION OF ALL THINGS HELD PRECIOUS UNDER GOD, THE NAME IS 666 SATIN THAT FELL AND SEEKS MORE REVENGE NOVER LOVE!
YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
WORLDWIDE! HE TAKES LIFE AT EVERY TURN
ALL THAT BELIEVE IN THE HIGHER LOVING SPIRIT ARE HIS TARGET THAT WILL BE SACRIFICED, SHOULD WE STAND STRONG AGAINST, THE NEW WORLD ORDER THAT HAS BEEN FORMATTED SINCE 1400 NOW COMING INTO PLANE SIGHT FOR US ALL THAT ARE LOOKING TO SEE.
THE WELL GOES SO DEEP THAT ONLY HELL KNOWS IT ALL, HORRIFYING REALITY, JUST STARTING TO BE TOLD AND SHOWN!
MAY YOU BE AND KEEP IN THE GOOD LOVEING SPIRIT OF JESUS OR THE GREAT SPIRIT IN YOU BELIFES ALL THAT ARE GOOD AND STAND IN THE LIGHT OF OUR CREATOR AND CALL TO HIM JESU SHALL BE SEEN PRAY FROGIVNESS FOR FORGIVNESS TO THE WICHED BLESS THEM . FOR THE GREAT SPIRIT STATES THIS SHALL RELIECE YOU FROM GUILT .I BELIEVE .. HOLD YOUR FAMILIES PRAY FOR EVERYONE TO BE FREE FROM SIN GUILT AND PAIN GIVE TO THE POOR AND LOVE SHOW FROM WITHIN THIS IS THE BOOK OF LIFE. TO HONOR RESPECT TO FORGIVE AND TEACH PEACE.TO GIVE CHARITY AND HONER TO ONE ANOTHER IN LOVE. AND TO FORSAKE THE SINS OF THE WICKED THAT MEAN TO DESTROY US ALL
I AM HERE WITH YOU NOW,
IN SPIRIT ALWAY AND FOREVER CONNECTED TO THE ONES OF THE LIGHT AND PEACEFUL TEACHINGS WERE THE LOVE OF THE CREATOR RESIDES IN US ALL, THAT IS WERE YOU WILL FIND ME, WATCHING OVER THE EARTHLY WRONGS STANDING FOR JUSTICE FOR EVERYONE’s RIGHTS TO BE FREE, THIS IS WHERE YOU WILL FIND ME,
SHOULD WE PARISH WE WILL MEET AGAIN IN THE BACK 40 IN, HEAVEN WE SHALL FIND LOVE ONCE AGAIN IN JESUS NAME AMEN .. SZYQz
MAY THERE BE AN ANSWER TO THE ISSUES AT HAND INFLICTING THE PLANET WITH HATRED SORROW PAIN AND SUFFERING THROUGHOUT THE WORLD ! WE KNOW THERE ARE BETTER WAYS TO DEAL WITH PROBLEMS, BUT THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM THIS IS AN ILLNESS FROM THE WORLD ORGANISATIONS THAT BIND EVERYTHING INTO ONE SOLID CAPSULE WERE WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO STAND AND FIGHT !, OR LAY DOWN AND DIE! THIS IS AN EFFERT TO DO WITHOIT VIOLANCE ! THE PEN MUST WIN OVER THE PHYCAL WORLD OF HATE AND DEATH .. FOR HATE BEGETS HATE THERES NOTHING TPO WIN .. THIS TAKES EVERYONE TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE TRASH ! IT EVER SO STSAGNET NOW .. SEND THIS OUT AND RESEARCH AND GATHER OTHERS THAT WISH TO KEEP THERE LIVES AND FREEDOMS INTACT. OH AND IF THIS MESSAGE COURSES ME PAIN ..I DONT GIVE A DARN CHARLETT YOU SHOULDNT BE HARMING PEOPLE THIS WAY AMEN SZYQz

Wow! Riveting! What have we become? We “consumers”. We Americans. What can we become? Love. Honor. Respect. Peace. Family. Mni Wiconi.

“War is over, if we want it.” – John Lennon & Yoko Ono Lennon, written on a peace sign, just weeks before shots cut John down in front of their New York apartment building by an unemployed security guard, who had lived in Hawaii, so Walter Cronkite reported the CBS nightly news.

I was there when the Treaty Camp was taken down. Standing in front of the 1806 barricade, the Morton County Sheriff assured us that if people left peacefully their belongings would be safeguarded and returned to them. Obviously, that did not happen.

This article really glosses over some points to help the authors’ agendas. For example, deliberately herding bison into law enforcement would likely have killed if not severely wounded numerous people had there not been a helicopter in the sky to redirect them away. It also fails to mention that the reason that Kyle Thompson was speeding away is because he was being chased and was eventually rammed off the road by protesters. Had they let him go (as he was legally carrying a gun in a vehicle on a public road) and decided not to take the law into their own hands there would not have been an issue. I don’t ever remember hearing anyone on either side saying he threatened anyone with the gun. Probably the most egregious is the glossing over of “a gun went off” in reference to Red Fawn Fallis. She fired three rounds off while being arrested. It’s not like a gun accidentally discharged and that was that. Three bullets! The federal government has ruled on the “ceded lands” issue whether anyone likes it or not. The Supreme Court ruled on it. How is Sheriff Kirchmeier supposed to enforce something else? I know that these articles are great click bait, but do you have to be so obvious?

Newsflash: The Greens hold many mayorships and hold a great many seats on city councils across the nation. Here in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay), Greens hold seats in the governments of ALL the major cities. And here, we have something approaching single-payer health care; if you make below a certain amount it’s just as if we did have single-payer.

Maybe it’s time you get cracking and working with the Green Party so you too can have some progressive policies helping your life.

In fact, the Green Party in CA has been so successful, a few years ago, the Dems, who otherwise run things, managed to pass a law for state-wide office to try and keep Greens out by having a screwed up version of rank choice voting they call instant run-off. That’s how scared the Dems are of the Greens… The Greens are doing more than just some things right.

DAPL really has to be understood as a joint Democratic-Republican effort to screw over the American public for the benefit of Wall Street and international capital. A key part of this agenda was the bipartisan effort to lift the ban on oil exports.

On the Democratic side:
U.S. Reverses Decades of Oil-Export Limits With Obama’s Backing, Bloomberg?

With the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama on Friday ended 40 years of U.S. crude oil export limits by signing off on a repeal passed by Congress earlier in the day. . .
Repeal of the crude-export restrictions reverses four decades of a policy that has defined the nation’s relations with the rest of the world. Without the trade limits, the U.S. — now the world’s largest oil and gas producer — is free to export its crude, as it already does with refined products including gasoline. The U.S. Senate passed the bill with a vote of 65-33 after the House approved the measure 316-113 hours earlier.

Notice also that it was Barak Obama who quietly approved the Dakota Access Pipeline in the first place (probably because his major billionaire backer, Warren Buffett, has extensive investments in it, via Phillips 66 and Wells Fargo holdings in the billions) – the protests only erupted after that. Trump is even more devoted to it, but the establishment Democrats are basically in the pocket of fossil fuel interests too.

And on the Republican side:

Sponsored by House Republican Charlie Dent, H.R. 2029 — known officially as the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, and unofficially as the behemoth omnibus spending bill — spanned almost 900 pages of text stuffed to the gills with wholly unrelated items. With so many riders, and an impending government shutdown making time of the essence in its passage, it would have been all-but impossible for politicians voting on it, to peruse its entire text.

But [Rick] Perry, on ETP’s board, and Dent, again, the bill’s sponsor, grasped the auspicious opportunity the volume of the legislation and its critical deadline presented — and took full advantage.

Incidentally, one of Charles Wieder (Charlie) Dent’s biggest contributors in 2014 and 2016 was the mammoth German chemical company BASF SE, according to OpenSecrets.org — and BASF’s financial advisor is none other than Deutsche Bank, which happens to have well over $275 billion invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline. . .

With these political, financial, and corporate interests in mind, Section 101 of the omnibus H.R. 2029 sought to lift the ban on U.S. exports of unrefined crude if the legislation passed — which it did in December 2015.

As long as economies depend on oil and gas, everybody should admit that pipelines are the best way of transportation. That said companies should respect the environmental regulations and compensate the owners of the land through which the pipelines run. Being against pipelines in general does not help and will only push the companies toward short term profit seeking tactics.

The timeline for the return on investment of the pipeline – and any major new fossil fuel infrastructure – puts it outside the timeline of an acceptable project simply because we cannot afford to continue to pump additional carbon into the atmosphere for that much more time.

As support for that, a new report from ice scientists says that, “if nothing is done to limit carbon pollution, then global sea levels will rise by [ice melting on Antarctica] an estimated 1.32m. That is 50% more than was previously thought”. And THAT estimate is omitting the fact that if we get between one and two feet of rise from now, then we’ll get an additional roughly 10′ of sea level rise from low-lying terrestrially supported ice that will join the sea when sea level reaches it and melts it. … It’s the get two, get 12 scenario – a positive feed back loop.

When sea levels rise 12′, industrialized civilization will be in big trouble. We simply cannot adapt that fast, especially when we know we have to start adapting now and the ultra-rich are preventing any moves to adapt to what’s happening.

We need to stop dragging our feet about doing something!

Here’s what I am doing:

1) I have completely eliminated my commute – its’ now just a flight of stairs.

2) I have honed my buying habits: I don’t buy things frivolously, make sure I buy goods that will last, with as little packaging as I can find, and preferably goods that can be repaired, and whenever possible, I buy locally. Remember, Reduce, Re-use, and Recycle, in that order!

3) I’ve stopped using an automobile for running nearly all errands and in stead have gotten myself a bike with baskets that can take four grocery bags AND a couple gallons of milk, AND pull a trailer. I got a used bike trailer designed to pull two toddlers and now can carry a lot of stuff in it!

4) To help with distance and hills, I’ve added a “torque-sensing” feature to my bike so I can now take any of the hills here in the SF Bay Area with ease. This helps me run errands with the bike that I formerly needed a car for.

5) I use the BART system – our “subway” – whenever it makes any sense.

6) I have already converted one car to an all-electric vehicle, and am now working on improving the design. This results in a cheaper solution, AND is a great form of recycling. So, when I DO need a car, I have an all-electric solution.

7) I’m forcing my local utility to “go renewable” by switching to a secondary company that adds all renewable-only power to the grid. So, all MY electric power is all-renewable-energy, and this will eventually force my utility to switch over, too.

Oops, looks like I left out a tiny bit of important detail… When I wrote:

4) To help with distance and hills, I’ve added a “torque-sensing” feature to my bike so I can now take any of the hills here in the SF Bay Area with ease. This helps me run errands with the bike that I formerly needed a car for.

I meant to add that this “torque-sensing” feature is fed into a modern electric-bike motor system that only supports what I’m doing as a rider. No throttle is necessary because it doesn’t convert your bike into a moped, it just adds power as YOU add power! Clever!

With this system, I can get assistance for around 96 miles on a single charge, can ride up to, oh, maybe a peak of 27 miles per hour (over 20 is easy, over 24 or so takes a LOT of work!), and ride up hills at over 15 MPH that I wouldn’t even want to walk up! So, I can go further, faster, to places I might not even have been able to go before, all without raising a sweat if I need to arrive smelling nice and being clean! (Or, can get as much workout as desired.)

There’s more than one such system out there, but I use the Tongsheng TSDZ2. There’s a strong user community to get support from as well.

This is a great way to PERSONALLY take on the challenge of stopping the addition of carbon to the atmosphere.

You realise that everything you just described is only made possible through the use of vast amounts of oil, right? I admire you for living as carbon-neurally as you can, but we are all still fundamentally tied to a petro-based civilization.

Oil used to make plastics and other products are just fine – what we have to do is stop adding carbon to the atmosphere and we’d BETTER BE in a transition period RIGHT NOW. Sure, I can’t get many of these products without fossil fuels being burned, but that’s not my fault and my uses are trying to step away from its use WHERE I CAN.

If the ultra-rich are going to drag their feet, at the very least the rest of us can be doing our own part – and, by the way, these are all very cost effective and even great economical choices; I’m not paying extra for these choices while doing my part.

Abby, I’ve been trying (since you made the post yesterday) to post a reply regarding your response to kovie’s response to me; THANK YOU. I would not have known that deeper past – and kovie’s hypocrisy – because I didn’t recognize the name or know the previous posting history. HOWEVER, I sure remember a great many people like kovie from the last election cycle! Yours was a spot-on reply…

If you want the details you can read my response to Abby, but the gist of it is that her accusations were erroneous and false, and if either of you continue to promote them then I will have to regard you as the LW version of Fox, spewing lies that you hope people so inclined will believe.

Plus, ad hom, really? Quickest way to concede defeat and the bankruptcy of one’s “arguments”.

Piss-off kovie, you’ve got empty arguments, and I wasn’t talking to you anyway. I don’t care if her comments about you were accurate or incorrect; I know plenty of people who behaved just like she described and these are the people who really need to wake up and stop handing all the rest of us shit sandwiches. This lesser-evil shit is what’s guaranteeing ZERO substantial progressive ideas get implemented.

As long as economies depend on oil and gas, everybody should admit that pipelines are the best way of transportation. That said companies should respect the environmental regulations and compensate the owners of the land through which the pipelines run. Being against pipelines in general does not help and will only push the companies toward short term profit seeking tactics.

You know that in Germany the government decided to stop nuclear electricity production. Only a fraction has been replaced by Solar and Wind but the largest part of this drop has been compensated by invreasing brown coal power generation. Carbon footprint in Germany is on the rise.

You know that in Puerto Rico Tesla in installing solar and batteries to provide power for children’s hospitals? Just ramp that up and you can run everything with renewables. And no, there isn’t any shortage of lithium for batteries.

BTY the situation in Germany is as miserable as always. Former Stasi guys on the governmental side fight against the Mafia guys from East Europe, Turkey, Asia… and guess what … Italia on the economic side. But who cares about politics? Turks say it is boring stuff. And laugh about funny Germans.

OT, but curious that with CNN, NBC/MSNBC & Reuters all reporting that Mueller has gotten at least one indictment from a grand jury, that will be acted upon by Monday (i.e. one or more people arrested or turning themselves in), the NYT & WaPo haven’t published a word about this. Either the story’s bogus, or they’re terrified of Trump. Not even a brief story about how “other news outlets” (and ones seen as reputable, at least in the establishment media) have reported this, even though they haven’t hesitated to report on gossip and innuendo regarding Clinton, uranium and the Steele Dossier.

The connection to this unrelated story is the the media underreported on it too, and played down the brutal federal crackdown. We have the makings of a proto-fascist compliant media here, either in awe and supportive or raw unchecked brutal power, or frightened of it and willing to bend to its wishes.

I prepared my finances, business, and home interests and got myself ready to go join the Water Protectors but my vehicle let me down. It had already taken me a long time to prepare to depart (it would be around 5k miles round-trip) and then the last-minute “delay of game” of getting the required maintenance done put my departure on the very day things seemed to have been, at least temporarily, somewhat resolved, so I didn’t go.

I don’t know what we can do, if anything, to force the federal government to honor the rule of law they claim to champion, but I’m open to trying, and I like the non-violent approach. I respect these people very much.

A few notes on Warren Buffett’s role seem to be in order. Buffett’s investments in the Dakota Bakken oil production (which feed oil to refineries owned by Berkshire Hathaway’s MidAmerican Energy) are a main driver behind DAPL.

Yes, Buffett’s trains – BNSF Railway – were hauling Bakken oil – but they had a nasty habit of exploding, and the trains pass through heavily populated areas, creating a massive liability risk. In addition, BNSF’s main business is hauling coal from mines to power plants, and getting out of the oil transport business is no big deal at all, despite what Joseph Mayer says. A good list of stories about BNSF and Buffett and DAPL is here:

Warren Buffett Bought Stake in Pipeline Company on Same Day as North Dakota Oil Train Explosion
By Steve Horn – Thursday, January 2, 2014

On December 30, the same day a Burlington Northern Sante Fe (BNSF) oil train derailed and exploded in Casselton, North Dakota, Warren Buffett — owner of holding company giant Berkshire Hathaway, which owns BNSF — bought a major stake in pipeline logistics company Phillips Specialty Products Inc.

Phillips is a major partner in DAPL, along with Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics. That’s why Buffett invested in Phillips. The other major actor is billionaire Kelcy Warren, CEO of ETP. Buffett donates heavily to corporate Democrats (backing both Clinton and Obama in 2008, but just Clinton in 2016, certainly not Sanders!). Kelcy Warren, in contrast, donates heavily to Republicans.

This is why people who pay attention call the Democrats the party of Wall Street, and Republicans the party of Big Oil. Or, you could say that the shareholders tend to back Democrats, and the executives tend to back Republicans. Or you could say it’s a plutocratic puppet show, which is the most accurate description.

This is why Obama said “let’s see how this plays out” rather than taking any action to prevent the military assault on Native American protesters – he was basically little more than a Warren Buffett sock puppet. And then came the Donald, who did what Kelcy Warren wanted. Heads they win, tails you lose!

So, that’s the deal with Warren Buffett and the pipeline – he can ship his oil from the Bakken to his refineries and export it to global markets, while avoiding risks of liabilities from exploding oil bomb trains passing through major cities. The Native Americans get the pollution (which is why the pipeline was rerouted away from Bismark) and any protests are crushed by private mercenaries with the full support of Wall Street and Washington. And yes, Warren Buffett is one of the largest actors involved in this.

If you want further evidence of Berkshire Hathaway’s involvement, you can look at Wells Fargo, one of the largest financiers of the pipeline, of which Warren Buffett owned a huge chunk:

This led to the city of Seattle cutting all ties with Wells Fargo over their backing of DAPL:

The city’s council voted on Tuesday unanimously in favor of cutting banking ties with Wells Fargo and avoiding any new investments in the company’s stocks and bonds.
Seattle’s break-up with Wells Fargo (WFC) was mostly driven by anger over the bank’s role as one of more than a dozen lenders helping to finance the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. – CNN Feb 8 2017

Warren Buffett is the spider in the cave, pulling the strings, poisoning the planet to serve his own greed and that of his exclusive Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. He really deserves the Ida Tarbell – JD Rockefeller treatment, but that seems unlikely in the current state/corporate propaganda system.

This article ignores certain facts. The police had already been negotiated and agreed echo. There are already numerous pipelines in the area, including under the water. The pipeline route does not go through, or particularly closer to, tribal lands. The protestor, who left a huge mess behind them, came and went using petroleum fueled by petroleum.

obviously the long term land dispute has not been “negotiated and concluded”. and look at the map, it is in unceded lands. of course they left a mess behind them; the mess created by the cops that came in and tore up their tents and belongings and made them stand around in cold weather in their underwear before carting them off to jail.

I would like to know what map shows this as unceded. Until recently, even the Standing Rock Indian Reservation didn’t even claim it and their website reflected the boundary as the Cannonball River. The protesters had over 2 months after they were given an eviction notice on the federal lands. If they didn’t get out and get their stuff cleaned up in that time, it’s not law enforcements fault..

You ignore the facts that this had already been negotiated and concluded, there were already a large number of pipelines in the area, including under the water, the pipeline is not on, or all that close to, tribal lands, and the huge pigsty of a mess left behind by the protesters.

You’re either ignorant or a liar. Probably the latter, since otherwise why bother to comment? Buffett is the major shareholder in Phillips 66, who is one of three partners behind DAPL – Phillips, Energy Transfer Partners, and Sunoco Logistics.

And that’s something that needs to be remembered, that many of the awful policies that have been enacted and enforced under GOP presidencies were often enforced and in many cases originated or intensified under Dem presidencies. Sure, GOP presidents have tended to be far worse, but Dem presidents don’t get off the hook so fast for being “better”.

E.g. Obama’s record number of deportations, refusal to prosecute a single bankster or war criminal, and escalation of the “GWOT” to Africa, Yemen and elsewhere, Clinton’s radical easing of financial regulations and pardons of criminal banksters, even Carter’s move into Afghanistan to destabilize the region to harm the USSR, which arguably led to the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaida.

Yes, Dems are, generally, better at running things, and do generally make better policies, but only in comparison to the moral disease that is the modern GOP. They’re both in hock to special interests, and thus corrupt. It’s just that Repubs are also infected with their crazy ideology based on no abortion, death to gays, unlimited guns for literally anyone (who’s white), hating on people of color and Muslims (except when they’re rich oil sheiks), and Jeebus 24/7.

And you got that choice…Donald Trump. A vote for anyone but Clinton in 2016 in a swing state helped him technically “win”. What did that vote for Stein or Johnson or write-in for Bernie accomplish but empty self-congratulation and putting Trump over the top?

If a Green or genuine progressive ever has a viable chance of winning the general election, then I’ll strongly consider voting for them. And I always vote for my preferred candidate in the primary whether or not they have a chance to get the nomination (which is why I voted for Bernie).

Fundamentally, I agree that the Democratic party blows and needs to either be replaced, or, more realistically, taken over by progressives (who know how to win elections and then govern effectively). But until that happens, yes, I’m voting for the “lesser of two evils”, to avoid the greater one. Even Chomsky agrees with me there.

Btw, it’s not just the party, but the whole democratic apparatus, from the news media to social media to our educational system to mass culture to political culture. They’re all geared towards distraction, production, profit and self-enrichment, with little regard for the communal good, which is a bedrock principle in any successful democracy. We have a lot of work to do in all these areas.

I’m sure it’s completely lost on you that YOU, and people just like you, are the reason we have Trump. The proof is right here in your own comment:

“If a Green or genuine progressive ever has a viable chance of winning the general election, then I’ll strongly consider voting for them.”

It’s a kind of reverse self-fulfilling prophecy; they aren’t viable only because you decide they aren’t viable. If you – and those like you – decided they were viable, they’d win.

Please quit playing the game of only-two-party-politics because doing so cements into place the will-never-be-progressive Democratic Party that only plays lip-service. I already quoted Hillary’s where are they gonna go comment; so long as there is no “viable” choice “left” of the Democratic Party, they’re going to keep shitting on all of us.

And, pssst: Chomsky isn’t always correct.

Voting for the lesser evil is still voting for evil, and in this past election we had TWO terrible choices from the two large parties. Your continuing to vote for the lesser evil actually does help guarantee we will continue to have evil handed to us.

The problem is, of course, that the ultra-rich have captured the government and power never concedes a damned thing unless forced. Your view just perpetuates their rule.

Actually, the only person “proving” anything here is you, in why the “real left” never wins, by engaging in such accusatory and divisive “my way or the highway” personal attacks on people who are their natural allies, just insufficiently “pure” for them–that are additionally nonsensical on their face, because there simply aren’t enough people like “me” who, if they had voted for Stein in the general election, she still wouldn’t have won or come anywhere near it. If you actually think she had even the tiniest chance of winning, you are, quite literally, a crazy person.

But I’d love to hear your theory of how my voting for Stein would have led to her winning. Seriously, explain to me how that would work, in a country where a majority of voters would at least consider voting for a Trump or Bush. Unless you can explain how millions of ill-informed, Karshashian-watching, “smart” phone-addicted nitwits who spend more time keeping up with celebrity chefs than politics could have been persuaded to vote for someone they’d never even heard of, you’re full of hot air, empty anger and invective.

This is a BS statement, kovie. Not one person owed Hillary their vote. My vote for Jill was just that. A vote for Jill, not Trump and definitely not for Hillary.
I think I remember you from daily kos, and if you are the same person, then you are a hypocrite.
You were against everything that Bush did in regards to the Iraq war, torture and the Bush tax cuts to name a few things.
But you stayed silent when Obama did the same things as Bush did. Including invading Libya on false pretenses.
BTW. Who made the tax cuts permanent?
The hypocrites on DK were going to vote for Hillary even though she was running on creating a no fly zone over Syria which would have risked war with Russia. She told people that universal health care will never, ever happen, and again people were voting for her anyway.

The Green Party will never be in a position to win if people don’t work for them and vote for them.

The lesser of two evils concept is why the DP blows today. You keep giving them permission after they keep moving to the right.

In the real world in which we live, a vote for a CLEARLY non-viable candidate by a left-leaning voter in a swing state was a de facto vote for Trump, because THAT’S HOW THE MATH WORKS. You can blah blah all you want, but the irrefutable laws of MATH–and not the advanced ones you might have learned in high school or college and beyond, but plain old grade school math–dictated that every vote not cast for the clearly superior if admittedly still hugely flawed candidate was a vote for the hateful pussy-grabbing racist moron con artist who wants to nuke half the world.

So, if you still think Stein had even the remotest chance of winning the 2016 election, or that Clinton was as heinous and horrific a prospective president as Trump, you’re both an idiot and delusional. Like I wrote above, even Chomsky, let alone Bernie, knew this, and voted accordingly. I get voting for a Stein in CA, NY, IL or WA, where Trump had next to no chance of winning, as a “protest” throwaway vote, or to get the Green party’s numbers up to where it would qualify for federal matching funds in the next election. I can actually respect that. But to have voted for her in MI, FL, PA, WI or the like, and be a lefty, well, that’s literal insanity and idiocy. And look where it got us. If you think we’re no worse off than we would have been under Clinton, I refer you to the above words.

Btw, from before he was even first elected in 2008 I was one of Obama’s harshest critics, on DK and elsewhere, including Glenn’s old blogs at the Guardian and before that at Salon. I got attacked by the Obot posse continually, my comments got HRed and hidden, and I was even temporarily suspended for several days to a week and I think even a month on several occasions, for refusing to toe the party line and lie about Obama’s many failings, from his hypocritical and opportunistic about-face on FISA to his refusing to prosecute banksters and was criminals to his corporate abd blue dog-friendly approach to Ocare, which ended up far weaker than it could and should have been–plus his utterly idiotic and cowardly approach to politics, which had a lot to do with the 2010 “shellacking”. So, you couldn’t possibly be more wrong there.

However, I did vote for him both times, and would do it again in a heartbeat, because the alternative would have been far, far worse. And in the real world, that’s often the only real choice you get, because even if every “true progressive” voted Green, they still wouldn’t win, because mainstream center-right, center and center-left Dems wouldn’t also vote for them, thus splitting the left vote and handing the election to the Repub. If you really wanted a Green to be president someday, you’d be focusing on local and state-level election, then congress, and finally the presidency. And that’s a 10-20 year process at the very least, no different from how the far-right took over the GOP & country starting in the mid-60’s.